I THIRST

What a sight is this—the Maker of heaven and earth with parched lips! The Lord of glory in need of a drink! The Beloved of the Father crying, “I thirst!”[1] 

Whenever we hear read, “I thirst”, the moment weighs heavy for all who are listening with ears and heart. Arthur Pink’s quote above captures the dissonance of what happened in that moment. How could such a sight be? 

Many of us would feel moved to bring fresh cold water to any criminal suffering such great pain, humiliation, and thirst. As Arizonans, we are especially aware of the pains and dangers of thirst. But would we have done so for Jesus if we had been there watching? Would the guards have let us? Would we have lowered our heads and walked quickly by to avoid trouble? Someone held up the hyssop[2] sponge for him a drink, even though the cheap, sour wine was unfit for the Beloved of the Father.[3] Yet even for that person, Jesus thirsted. 

Augustine saw that Jesus thirsted for that person who brought him the bad wine. Jesus thirsted not only for water but for all of us. As Augustine wrote in his reflection on John 19:28, “The Samaritan woman at the well found the Lord thirsting, and by him thirsting, she was filled. She first found him thirsting in order that he might drink from her faith. And when he was on the cross, he said, “I thirst,” although they did not give him that for which he was thirsting. For he was thirsting for them.” 

If we were somehow brave enough or strong enough to have taken Jesus down from the cross, he would have looked at us and said the same thing he said to Peter, “Shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me (Jn 18:11)?” He would not have let us take him down, because he did not need us to save him. He was saving us. He had set his face to both thirst and drink the cup from the Father. That cup has taken away our thirst, who trust in him, forever. As Arthur Pink writes so well: 

The very fact that He did now “thirst” evidences His perfect submission. He that had caused water to flow from the smitten rock for the refreshment of Israel in the wilderness, had the same infinite resources at His disposal now that He was on the cross. He who turned the water into wine by a word from His lips, could have spoken the same word of power here, and instantly met His own need. Why, then, did He hang there with parched lips? Because, in the volume of that Book which expressed the will of God, it was written that He should thirst! He came here to do God’s will, and ever did He perfectly perform it.[4] 

Because of our Lord’s great thirst on the cross, no one who asks him for a drink will ever thirst again (John 4:14)!  

1 – Arthur Walkington Pink, Exposition of the Gospel of John (Swengel, PA: Bible Truth Depot, 1923–1945), 1056. 

2 – In Exodus 12:22, at the first Passover, blood was sprinkled on the doorposts using hyssop. 

3 – “He is given vinegar to drink mingled with gall. Who? He who turned water into wine, the destroyer of the bitter taste who is sweetness and altogether desire.” Gregory of Nazianzus, On the Son, Theological Oration 3(29).20. 

 4 – Pink, Exposition of the Gospel of John, 1057.